doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
my story
passages
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I saw this at daisies’ site and thought it would be fun to do today (and takes my mind off of things I should be doing).
do you own a gun?
Not really my thang.
what do you think of hot dogs?
Blech. Yuck. Gag. Ummm…in case that didn’t come through, I can’t stand them.
What do you prefer to drink in the morning?
hot tea with cream or vanilla chai or green tea latte
Can you do push-ups?
what are push-ups? heh
What’s your favorite piece of jewelery?
it’s either my watch or my plastic bracelet for the Sharing Down Syndrome Arizona organization
What is your secret weapon to lure the opposite sex?
are we at war?
Middle name?
maurie
Name 3 thoughts at this exact moment:
1. I’m tired to my bones.
2. I need to fast forward the Tivo
3. Dakota isn’t snoring — what’s wrong with this picture?
Name 3 drinks you regularly drink:
1. water
2. tea (hot and cold)
3. diet coke
What time did you wake up today?
The first time? 3am. The second time? 5:04 (yes, I remember the minute)
Current hate?
not really a hater. dislike: I can’t seem to learn the lessons I’m supposed to be learning in life
Favorite place to be?
my home — it’s my sanctuary
Least favourite place to be?
crowded places
Where would you like to go?
I think the better question would be: where wouldn’t I like to go?
Do you own slippers?
Yes, but I never wear them
What shirt are you wearing?
black turtle-neck sweater
Do you burn or tan?
burn, burn, burn
Favorite color(s)?
greens and purples, I think…but I like shades of all colors
Would you be a pirate?
I’m not sure I could be ruthless enough
What is your favorite holiday?
thanksgiving
What songs do you sing in the shower?
whatever is in my head — I’m not partial to any one song
What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?
I didn’t really. I had an imaginary friend who guarded me so there was no fear
What’s in your pockets right now?
no pockets — wearing a skirt
Last thing that made you laugh?
My niece making a funny face when she kissed grandpa after dinner tonight
Best bed sheets as a child?
the ones on my bed
Worst injury you’ve ever had?
I’ve never broken anything. I’ve had stitches several times. does my cancer count?
Are your parents still together?
yes — 41 years
Do you wish on shooting stars?
don’t you?
What is your favorite book(s)?
The Temple of My Familiar by Alice Walker
What is your favourite candy?
dark, dark chocolate
How is the weather outside right now?
dark and cold with a biting wind
What was your first thought this morning when you woke up?
does Dakota need to go out?
How about you?
eight
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Laurie chose me as one of the people to respond to the meme of telling you eight things about me that you may not know.
I’ve been thinking about this the last few days. I even posted the question to Twitter and Pownce, wondering what people would be interested in knowing. I feel like people who read my blog know me very well. Almost everything about me is here, in these pages. I’m not sure there is much that isn’t. I’m afraid that the things I’ll post won’t be so positive because I tend to be critical of myself.
I’ll give it a whirl…but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
- I’ve always enjoyed being the lurker…the one who watches but doesn’t say much. From “Dear Abby” to “PostSecret,” I like reading about people and their thoughts. I think that’s why I am drawn to reality TV — anything from Survivor to Big Brother to Temptation Island. I like the social aspect of people without being involved in the social side of them.
- I had blue hair in high school. Not just blue hair but designs shaved into the back of my head. I wore long black trenchcoats. I rode a skateboard with boys who also wore long black trenchcoats. I wrote bad poetry on napkins late at night in Denny’s. I wore pink converse high tops with long johns and skirts. I was odd — but also in speech & debate, student government, theater, concert band, softball, basketball, and volleyball. I wasn’t typical.
- I commuted from Flagstaff to Las Vegas once a week during my senior year in high school to complete a college course that I was taking concurrently with my high school courses. Classes were not offered online at that time.
- I wanted to be a lawyer. I wanted to work on cases for indigents and traumatized people — specifically women. I wanted to make the world a better place for them.
- I’ve never been proposed to or engaged. I’ve seriously dated only 5 men in my life and I lived with four of them. None of these is recent.
- I walk between 12,000 and 15,000 steps, on average, a day. I also do 100 sit-ups every other day.
- I have over 100 plants in my house. They make me happy. At least one of them has been with me since I first moved out of my parents house when I was 18. It is still beautiful.
- Home, for me, is where Dakota, my books, my music, and my photographs are. If I have those four things, anywhere can be home. When I lived in London, I was missing Dakota (but had some books, music, and photos). I felt that loss every day I lived there.
I’m not going to directly pick anyone to answer these. But if you do, please let me know. I’d like to learn a bit more about you, too.
sacred cow
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The photo to the right by urikrishna reminded me about an event of my childhood. urikrishna writes about the extra-sacredness of a five-legged cow. In my life, the five-legged cow has a special place, as well.
When I was a kid, living in Missoula, Montana, a big highlight of the summer was going to the fair. That fair, much like the fair here in Flagstaff, was heavy on the 4-H and Home Economics entries. People worked all year to get the biggest bull, the largest watermelon, or the best apple pie for the yearly fair.
This one year, as my brothers and I walked through the fairgrounds, we noticed a big crowd around the cows. Now, crowds around the cows wasn’t a strange event but this was an unusually large crowd. And, being kids, we had to see what everyone was looking at so we squeezed our ways under and between all of the adults to get up close to the “event.”
As we peered through the fence, our eyes got big and our mouths formed those big “O’s” that kids get when they are amazed over something.
Right before us, close enough to touch, was a five-legged cow. This was something cool and new. Yup. What a story we’d have to tell the kids at school (and, as luck would have it, anyone who would listen for the rest of our lives — you’re here, aren’t you?).
Unlike the cow to the right, the leg was not growing out of its neck. Ahem. No. It was a bit more unsavory. It looked like it was coming out of it’s backend. Yes, you heard me. It wasn’t, not quite. But to kids, when you see a leg that close, that’s what it seems like.
For the next few months, especially at the dinner table, we’d regal one another with tales about the five-legged cow. “Do you remember…?” “This is like that time we saw the five-legged cow…you know the one. It had a leg coming out of its….”
Oh, yes. Dinner conversation. I’m sure we were delights to be around.
Was the cow sacred? Heck yes. Was polite dinner conversation sacred? Not a chance. We had a story and would use it any chance we had.
I have seen one other five-legged cow since but it wasn’t as impressive as the one I saw as a child. There are some things that leave an impression. A five-legged cow with a crowd of adults around it gawking is one of them.
i am different
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Rousseau, in discussing his particular confessional style of memoir writing, writes, “I am commencing an undertaking, hitherto without precendent, and which will never find an imitator…I am not made like any of those I have seen; I venture to believe that I am not made like any of those who are in existence. If I am not better, at least I am different.”
I have been blogging (or something akin to it online) for nearly 10 years. Before blogs were blogs, I was putting my thoughts on message boards and inviting comments there. I didn’t start this off as a confessional. I didn’t create it to become a subject of history or to become, like Samuel Pepys in his autobiographical style, an accumulative subject. I didn’t start a blog to write about my marginalized life. And yet, here I am – confessing, being a subject of history and an accumulative subject. I write about the ways I feel marginalized in today’s society.
I began this journey to have somewhere safe and free to write. I began this as a place to get those writing energies out, somewhere, anywhere. I write because I need to write. It fulfills me in ways that photography doesn’t. My words paint the pictures. It can be more blatant or more subtle depending on what I do with the words.
I’m working on my master’s thesis. I’m looking inward, at myself. I’m beginning to wonder if I’m self-absorbed, writing these past 10 years. I’m looking at my words, my photos, and determining what type of audience I’ve been writing for, what my voice has been, what type of identity I have created, and if I’m believable to anyone but myself.
I think I am. I mean, this is me – the real me – here on these pages. I tell the truth as I know it. I share my world as I see it, warts and all. But is it believable? Does it resonate? Does it matter?
This is me without the filters of big publication machinery. Without an editor. Without a publisher. My autobiography. My accounting of my life – here, right in front of you. My sorrows, my joys, my fears, my triumphs. All right here. In technicolor. For the world to see immediately.
Me.
remembrance: christmas
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When I was a kid, living in Montana, there were times where we were barely holding things together. The economy was severely depressed because the lumber industry was taking a drastic turn. Concepts in how the lumber industry should be run were changing and more attention was being paid to the environment and how to forge partnerships between conservation and business.
My parents didn’t work in the lumber industry but that didn’t matter in western Montana. Everything was tied to lumber and it trickled down. If people were losing jobs, it meant they couldn’t buy other goods, which meant that people like my parents weren’t going to be selling their services or making money either.
And along comes Christmas in the midsts of a severe economic depression.
We had been raised as fairly humble children. Much of the time our gifts were handmade and those were things we cherished (I can still remember the awesome toybox our dad made for us that had a stove painted on it so I could play with that). We didn’t ask for much because we knew that we wouldn’t get it anyway and it wasn’t as important as other things.
This Christmas was even worse though. There was no money. There was hardly any food. We were living off of whatever had come out of the garden and had been canned by my mom.
The skirting beneath the Christmas tree was bare. The stockings hung with nothing in them.
But there were two letters addressed to my parents.
As a kid, letters meant nothing. And sure, it was a disappointment but we had lived a hard life for much of our lives so this wasn’t much different.
On Christmas day, our parents opened the letters. In those, our grandparents had sent gift certificates to grocery stores. They knew exactly what we needed: food. Those gift certificates meant the difference between eating next to nothing and filling our hungry stomachs.
There aren’t many Christmas gifts that I remember 30 years later. That one, though, I do. It was the most valuable Christmas gift that I can remember receiving. It meant everything.
hanging out
05 years ago
Who was in your group, clique, or posse when you were a teen?
Before we moved to Flagstaff in the middle of my senior year, I was in high school in Las Vegas, Nevada.
At Bonanza High School, I belonged to a lot of different clubs and hung out with different people.
I was in theater and speech & debate. I was in the honor society. I was in band, softball, volleyball, and basketball. I was in student government and SADD (students against drunk driving).
So, I hung out with whomever was around at the time…depending on what function or meeting I was attending.
When we moved to Flagstaff, I had a core set of friends. We were in a smaller town and the people in the same groups tended to be the same people.
I was still involved in a lot of groups but I had a core set of 5 other friends who got me through that last year of high school. We were the types that people liked to beat up on – sensitive, dramatic, and a bit on the outer boundaries of other kids. We dressed in different types of clothing than our peers. We acted differently. We thought of ourselves as the beatniks of our generation: dark sunglasses, long trenchcoats, writing poetry on napkins in the Denny’s while drinking coffee, smoking clove cigarettes (well, not me so much), and speaking of loftier things.
We were okay with being different. It suited us.
firsts
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First date, first love, first adventures… who shared your big teenage “firsts” with you?
My firsts were not milestones in my life. In fact, I can’t remember many things that happened and when they did, they were usually cloaked in secrecy or I didn’t talk about them with anyone.
My first real kiss came from a much older man. I was 15, he was 21. Not something you go running around telling people. He wanted it to be a secret (and now I understand why – but I didn’t then).
I’m still waiting for my first love. I’ve had lots of crushes but not so much love.
Adventures, I had many. But during high school, I was that quintessential good girl. I didn’t go on adventures until I got to college and then I went crazy.
todd
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This is from Mom’s blog:
Today is my son’s birthday, 38 years ago in Jacksonville Beach, Florida at about midnight I called my landlady to come watch my little girl so I could go have a baby. The hospital was a little 25 bed building, it cost me $25 dollars for the two day stay, my husband was in the navy and that was the fee for an off base delivery. My regular doctor was away so I got his partner who I had only seen once before, but in the navy you got used to seeing a doctor only once. Anyway I had requested no anesthia, but that wasn’t what happened, this doctor was in charge, I had no say, he gave me sodium pentathal, of course I didn’t know until it was done. A few minutes later I was out except for a few lucid moments when I would tell that asshole of a doctor what I thought of him and his arrogance at me and my babies’ expense. At that time you didn’t know if you were having a boy or a girl, and when I woke up late the next morning I didn’t even know I had had my baby. I was so groggy I reached down to feel my tummy and thought it was still there, I called the nurse to find out, she told me I had a baby boy, that was it, she left. I rang again and asked to see my baby, she told me I had to wait until they brought the babies out to be with the mothers. I waited a few minutes, but I wanted to see my baby, so I got up and went down the hall to the nursery, he was beautiful. The nursery nurse picked him up and showed me his name band, ten fingers and ten toes. Wow, I felt much better, went back to my room and could hardly wait to hold him. Finally they brought him in and I had awhile alone with my boy, I took his clothes off to make sure he was all there, he was such a precious baby, and now I had two sweethearts. I nursed him for the first time, he was no effort at all. When we were done I just held him and loved him then looked at his name band, had a real hard time seeing it my eyes were still blurry from the drugs, when I finally made it out it did not have our name on it. I paniced and called the nurse, by then I was scared, angry and crying, you can’t imagine what was going through my mind, the fear of not knowing if this was the child I had born. She was nearly as upset as I was, she assured me he was my baby and rushed out of the room. I guess she went to the nursery, when she returned she was with two other nurses and a new wrist band for my boy. They looked at him, checked both his ankle and wrist bands, the ankle band confirmed he was mine. Apparently the wrist bands were put on the wrong babies, and the other two were girls. That afternoon my milk came in and I thought I would die from the pain because I had to wait a couple of hours to feed the baby on their time schedule. When he finally came in I experienced terrible afterpains, which I did not have with my first birth. To add to my destress I dropped my husbands picture, who was out at sea, I felt very alone that day, I cried and cried some more. Spent the next week at home with my precious babies, until their dad got home from overseas and my mom and sister came to meet the new baby. All in all it worked out ok, but at the time it wasn’t much fun. Anyway, I ended up with the greatest gift of all a happy healthy lovely and very loving boy, now a loving son, husband, brother and uncle. I love you Boo, HAPPY BIRTHDAY.
pets and animals
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What animals and pets are part of your childhood memories?
There are several animals that are a part of my childhood memories.
The first, and most important, was Smokey. She was our terrier and was a part of our lives for many years.
Smokey had a temper and would snap at people – but never at us, luckily. We kept her away from most people because she was so protective of us. She had puppies that I remember. One set of them was poisoned by someone with antifreeze. Smokey was killed when I was in the 8th grade. Someone shot her and it broke my heart. I cried all day at school.
Other animals were typically horses…other peoples’. I wanted a horse so badly but we were the poor family in the neighborhood and couldn’t afford one. In fact, one day I even brought a shetland pony home and begged my mom to buy it. It was $100. I learned an economic lesson then. I found out how much horses eat and how much more expensive that horse would be.
The one animal that I didn’t know but that would become a part of family folklore was the five-legged calf in the county fair in Missoula, Montana. It was the coolest thing we had ever seen and we couldn’t stop talking about it.
We even talked about it one night over dinner when we had guests and they were disgusted by it. We thought it was hilarious that other people didn’t talk about such cool things during dinner.
names
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Do you know who chose your name and why they chose it?
I have asked my mom this several times – especially because I have an unusual middle name.
The only thing she has told me is that she liked the name.
I wanted a more exciting answer but I guess, as my niece would tell me, “you get what you get.” :-)